Also on the agenda for the weekend is a visit to the Air Zoo, which houses the P-47 Thunderbolt, the type of plane the pilots flew during WWII. The group also plans to honor select veterans with the
French Legion of Honor medal.

There were around 1,050 men in the 368th Fighter Group at
any one time, said Tim Grace, whose dad was in the 396th squad. They led the
Ninth Air Force fighter groups with 149 air victories. Thirteen pilots
were lost in air-to-air combat, he said. They lost 41 men in other combat situations and training.

"They've all lost friends," Helen Humpal, Taubert's
daughter, said.

She said the bond is strong between the men who
served in the Second World War. The fighter pilots were activated from June 1943 to August 1946.

"It's a life-changing event for them," she said. "Like they
say, it's a band of brothers."

Gerry Monaghan, 93, said he thought he was joining the infantry but
was instead drafted into the fighter group as a cook, where he made sure every
man went up in the sky on a full stomach.

"I came here to see some old buddies I was with," he said. "I
feel close to them."

Almost like family, said Ken Kik, organizer of this year's
reunion. His dad, Richard Kik Jr., was a veteran of the fighter group and lived
in Kalamazoo for decades. After his death in 2005, Ken continued to attend the reunions.

"We've kind of become a family," said Kik, who lives in Danville, Ky.

Most of the men are in their 90s, and some have lost their
spouses. Monaghan pulled out a picture of his late wife, Elzabeth, from his
wallet.

"That's what kept me going through the war," he said,
holding the photograph.

Humpal said her father didn't start attending the reunions until
his wife died. Before that, he didn't talk much about the war.

"It's amazing to me," she said. "They don't talk about it.
They don't brag about it."

The men did open up Friday night, eating ribs and sharing stories. Dick
Fox, 90, recalled the time his plane was shot from behind and he had to make a crash
landing.

"All I heard was a thud," said Fox, who lives in Racine, Wis. "Now I was a dead duck."

The shots, fired from a German plane, had ruined the
controls for his right wing, which was sticking straight up in the air, he
said. The shots weren't enough to bring his plane down.

"He missed and I'm here," he said.

One of his comrades hit the German plane, setting it on
fire. He had last-minute orders to land the plane on its belly with no landing gear.

Taubert, of Cleveland, Ohio, said that sometimes you wouldn't know you had been shot at until you
checked your plane the next day.

Fox and Taubert both enlisted in the military and were called to
service a few months later. Most men were given a week to prepare after their letter showed up.

Roseville resident Leslie Leavoy, 89, had an hour and a half.

When the time
came, he hopped on a train in Detroit. He was one of the youngest fighters at
19 years old, but he had always wanted to be a pilot, he said.

"I said 'Mom, you have to sign my papers so I can go to
aviation cadets,'" he said.

Bill Wright, 89, a few months younger than Leavoy, had also always wanted to fly.

"They named me 'Junior,'" Wright said. "I was the youngest."

He was a college student, taking calculus classes at Omaha
University, when he signed up for the service.

"We didn't like the professor and he wasn't doing a good job
so we decided to enlist," he said. "That's what I always wanted to do was fly."

The men's stories are compiled in three editions of "Second to None," a book that Grace said
he was inspired to write after attending a reunion in 2002.

"Nobody documented
their stories and if you didn't do it they were going to be missed," Grace
said.

He pored through 10,000 pages of documents to write the book.

"They started sending me cassettes and typewritten stories,"
he said.

Jessica Wright, 26, said her family has learned more in the last
five to 10 years about her grandpa Taubert, than they ever did. He remembers
things down to the smallest detail, she said.

"We always thought he was the coolest person ever," she
said. "We always looked up to him as the hero."

Erin
Gignac covers general assignment stories for MLive/Kalamazoo Gazette. Email her
at egignac@mlive.com and follow her on Twitter